The excitement, mixed with nerves and that dreaded moment of separation as Mum or Dad let go of your hand and waved goodbye.

Maybe you've experienced that with a child of your own, or maybe this year you have to send a child off to school for the first time.

It can be an anxious time for everyone in the family and it's important to make the transition as easy as possible.

Professor Bob Perry, from the Murray School of Education at Charles Sturt University, has been researching education for more than a decade and, along with his colleagues, he's compiled a set of guidelines for schools to consider when developing transition to school programs.

"I think there's some nerves with most children," he said.

"Many of them handle them very, very well. The large percentage of children are quite happy to be at school, they know why they want to be at school, but even with those ones, there's some nerves and those nerves, mainly, are about what's going to happen."

The guidelines are intended to provide advice not just for the children and teachers, but parents and guardians who may have difficulty coping when their child starts school.

"It can be quite a significant feeling of loss on the parents' part," he said.

"All of a sudden your child is heading off to school and you're no longer in control. Even if children have been to pre-school, where they've been absent from the parent for some time during the day, there still seems to be a much better feeling of control. The parents seem to know what's going to happen, they can be involved much more easily and they seem to be happier about that. But when children head off to school, there is this notion of the children growing up, and with that the absence from the family."

The first guideline addresses the relationships developed between teachers, students and parents.

"Transitions are about building up relationships." Professor Perry explained.

"You tend to function better if you know someone well. One (relationship) that's often missed is the relationship between families and teachers. You can solve most challenges if you actually know the person with whom you need to work."

One issue that can concern parents is whether a child is old enough to go to school.

666 ABC Canberra listener Margaret says her son was a year younger than most other students when he started school, which put him behind his friends when it came to the big events in high school.

"Academically he coped extremely well, he was a very bright boy," she said.

"But it just came against him the whole way through school in as much as by they time he was old enough to join Cubs (his friends) had joined scouts, when he was in high school he had to go in the swimming carnival against the primary school (students) because of his age, they all got their licence and he was still having his mother drive him around."

"Then they all went to the pub in year twelve to celebrate and he was too young to go to the pub then he graduated from university and they all travelled to America and he was still not 21."

But Professor Perry is not concerned about starting a child too young.

"I think the only time you need to think about a child's age, is to make a determination as to whether or not the child is legally eligible to go to school," he said.

"Once you've determined whether or not your child is old enough to go to school, legally, then you need to look at the child and say 'let's look at you and see whether or not you've got the social competencies, whether or not there is going to be sufficient support around you, what the school says about what's going to happen and what the pre-school/child care teachers say about your abilities.' But basically it's about how you're going to fit into a situation and how that situation's going to fit you."

"I think it's really unfair to suggest that the whole burden should be put onto the child."

While we often consider the anxiety that parents and children experience on the first day of school, this is also the time of year when many university graduates are starting their first teaching job.

Kristy Firkin graduated in Canberra last year and has moved to Coffs Harbour to teach at a Catholic primary school and she's feeling excited.

"It's been a big transition for me to move interstate, to a new education system and to a year six class as well because the students are grown up, they've been in the school for six years," she said.

"I think that hopefully they might be able to show me some things, and I can show them some things and I think having recently graduated I can bring a different experience of teaching and a different knowledge to the classroom that maybe they haven't had before."